• U.S.

THE FUTURE WITHOUT A ROAD MAP

6 minute read
Bruce W. Nelan

If this is war, the U.S. is doing a lot of business with the enemy. As threats of sanctions and reprisals still echo across the Pacific, Washington is striving to keep the battle over China’s theft of intellectual property from further denting the two nations’ trade relationship, now worth about $47 billion. One clear signal is Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary’s plan to fly to Beijing next week with a delegation of American businessmen who expect to sign deals worth as much as $8 billion. Another is the U.S.’s decision to go ahead with the sale of a million tons of wheat at subsidized prices.

The Chinese, who ran a nearly $30 billion surplus in commerce with the U.S. last year, would seem to have at least as big a stake in limiting the damage. They could win a tariff reprieve simply by closing down some of the factories in southern China that are flooding Asian markets with pirated videos and music.

But these are not normal times, and many experts in Beijing do not think a quick compromise is in the offing. The obstacle is much larger than a trade issue: it is an overall political stalemate brought on by the succession crisis. Deng Xiaoping, China’s 90-year-old senior leader, is in his last days, and decision-making power has dropped into the hands of a group of technocrats and military officers. And that has opened the door to critics who are publicly debating China’s future.

Paramount among the collective leadership group is President and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin. In spite of those titles, Jiang is viewed as a lightweight politician and possibly a short-term transition figure. An easy way to toughen up his unimpressive image is to stand up to the U.S. on trade. Jiang is unlikely to offer anything that could be read as a concession to Washington.

Washington hopes to keep the copyright dispute contained, but the opening salvo two weeks ago sounded serious. Because Beijing refused to crack down on pirate manufacturers, the U.S. imposed a 100% tariff on $1 billion worth of Chinese goods. Beijing retaliated with punitive tariffs of its own on U.S. consumer products. It looked as if the thrust and parry might lead to a full- scale duel. But the two sides announced that the tariff increases would not go into effect until Feb. 26. This week they will try to head them off altogether by reopening negotiations.

Beijing’s mood is strongly against concessions. Chinese officials strike the posture of victims, charging the U.S. with bullying a poor, struggling country. “The belief is,” says a government official, “if we give in to the U.S. on this one, they will just ask for more.” Shen Rengan, deputy director of the National Copyright Administration, complains that “there are a bunch of people in the U.S. who are petrified by the prospect of China becoming strong . . . The U.S. can’t play globocop in China.”

Even if the government were to order a crackdown on the pirates, there is no certainty it would have the authority to enforce its decree. Officials in Beijing admit privately that without a strong leader at the top, Beijing’s administrative power has weakened, particularly in the prosperous and freewheeling southern provinces.

While most Chinese do not favor bowing to the wishes of Washington, they can see the tentativeness in Beijing and assertiveness in the provinces; many of them are concerned about it. Deng’s economic reforms have led to immense growth and considerable prosperity for some, but they have also brought worrisome side effects. Inflation is in double digits, corruption and crime are on the rise, and development is very uneven.

As Deng fades from the scene, a fierce debate is beginning, questioning the correctness of his reforms and pondering what steps should come next. The discussion is going on mostly in private because the party’s political control and the zeal of the censors are still strong. Chinese intellectuals are extremely cautious about putting their views forward publicly.

So when a serious analyst weighs in with a major political critique, he almost automatically becomes a sensation. The latest proof of that is author Wang Shan. When he published his book, Viewing China Through a Third Eye, last year, Wang tried to protect himself by presenting it as the work of a German sinologist. Only after party chief Jiang had praised the book and more than 200,000 copies had been sold was its true authorship revealed.

Wang, 42, is a 20-year veteran of the party, an obscure novelist and a self-described entrepreneur who lives mainly on his royalties and profits from playing the stock and futures markets. His Third Eye was an extended political essay, startlingly plainspoken by Chinese standards but relatively abstruse to Western eyes and far from a liberal tract. Even Chinese readers disagree whether its observations tend to support Deng or his radical opponents.

The book argued that of all the Communist Party’s errors, the most serious was its failure to deal with the vast, impoverished countryside and the 700 million mostly poor peasants. It charged the intelligentsia with forgetting how to think. Most shocking, it asked directly whether the post-Deng leadership should adopt some of Mao Zedong’s more centralized policies.

Now Wang is coming out with a new book, Viewing China Through a Fourth Eye, which will offer some prescriptions. In an interview with TIME last week, Wang conceded, “Even now we have not figured out which direction China should go.” He is concerned mainly with managing reforms without creating chaos–delivering “reform in a controlled manner.” He worries about a revolt by the “living volcano” of peasants and says he is focusing his research on how to keep China stable.

The author predicts a revolution from above, which he calls “a top-down political evolution.” He says, “I believe problems in China will not be solved by the common people. Real political progress will come through the struggle within the elite.” Although his preference is for a strong autocracy, it is “highly possible,” he says, “that the party central committee will evolve into a parliamentary system.”

In the emerging national debate, there is no consensus on Wang’s views or even how to categorize them. He has been called a fascist, a heretic and shenjingbing, a lunatic. Critics say he implies that reforms have produced disorder and more reforms could bring chaos. They ask, Does he mean reform should stop?

Such are the questions that face China as Deng slips away. Should the nation try to hold things in place and retreat inward, or continue to reform? Should it open up to more normal relations with the West, including the U.S.? In a huge country unaccustomed to open discussion, the answers will not come soon. But if more debaters like Wang are willing to speak up, they can hurry the process along.

–Reported by Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing and Adam Zagorin/ Washington

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